


Zero

by Guanine_drools



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Harry cooks!, Hermione Granger-centric, Overuse of the 'she' pronoun, Soulmate-Identifying Timers, soulmate rejection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-19
Packaged: 2021-03-28 07:27:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30136047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Guanine_drools/pseuds/Guanine_drools
Summary: The universe hates Hermione Granger. That's it. No other reason could explain why her timer jumped from 10 years to 10 hours.Written for the HMS Harmony bingo thingy
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Harry Potter
Comments: 6
Kudos: 32





	Zero

10 Hours

Hermione sits up, panting. Her chest heaving with short, shallow breaths as she tries to focus her eyes on the spinning room. Her wrist burns right above her timer. She glances at the timer out of habit, seeking the familiar ‘10 years’ that she expects to see. So when her eyes find the dark print, which now reads ‘10 hours’, she promptly collapses back onto the bed.

Her life is perfect. She has a schedule, a job, a house, she was getting into a rhythm. But the universe wants to fuck up her life, apparently. She didn’t build her life with her soulmate in mind, unlike the millions of people in the New Millennium. Adding a soulmate now would fuck everything up, and Hermione Granger does not like fucked up schedules. 

Of course, the timer could change, to something like 50 years, she hopes, but she knows this is unlikely. As with any other problem in her life, she picks up her phone and seeks out Harry’s name. It’s late, and he probably won’t pick up, so she isn’t surprised when the call goes to voicemail. 

She slams her phone down on the bed, careful not to break it even in her anger. She looks out at the lights of the metropolis. It was meant to be a utopia. Love, peace and happiness everywhere. But they created the timers, and that was a step too far. Sure, it guaranteed love and acceptance, but at the cost of free will, and that was a price she wasn’t willing to pay. 

Her brain is too excited for sleep, so she decides to make herself some breakfast before heading off to work. 

******************

Harry is cooking. She knows this immediately as she stands on his doorstep because she can smell his signature treacle tart, and it suddenly reminds her of how much she misses Harry. She’s been working too hard lately. She carefully opens the door and spots Harry in the kitchen, closing the oven door. She walks straight to him, wrapping her arms securely around him. 

‘Hey,’ he says softly. ‘What’s wrong?’ She lifts up her timer in response, showing him the dark text reading ‘10 hours’. He hugs her tighter because he knows what this means to her. ‘What do you want to do?’ he asks, ‘The timers never lie.’ She knows this, and this is the source of her sorrow. ‘I don’t want to meet them’ she replies, ‘I have you to care for me.’

He smiles softly, knowing what she means. ‘But a soulmate is different,’ he says, ‘And even if you didn’t want to have anything to do with them, you know you’ll have to marry them.’

And that is another problem. The marriage law.

Tears build up in her eyes as she feels herself crumble. Harry gently wipes them away, hugging her tighter, letting her know that he’s always going to be here. 

*************  
10 minutes

She’s sitting at a cafe, writing on her laptop. She sips her drink, letting the bitterness wash away all thoughts of soulmates and marriages. She scratches at her timer, wishing she could chop off her hand to get rid of it, but she knows this won’t work. The timers aren’t a part of your body. They continue to work until the end of time.

She finishes her drink, carefully navigating the maze of tables to drop her cup in the bin. She turns to the counter, pulls out her citizen identity and drops it into the waiting hands of the cashier. That’s when she sees it. The dreaded dark letters rearrange themselves and her heart stops in anticipation. Then it reads ‘10 minutes’ and her heart stops for a very different reason.

She waits just long enough for the cashier to swipe the card and hand it over to her before running. The only thing she wants now is Harry.

She checks her timer repeatedly, watching the clock count down.

10 seconds

She was sure it read 5 minutes before now, but it suddenly reads 10 seconds and she stops, knowing her life is shattered now. She slides onto her knees, sobbing as the clock ticks down to the end.

0

‘You okay there?’ she hears a voice. The voice is masculine, so she knows her soulmate is a he. She looks up, knowing that there’s no point denying the inevitable. He is tall, with a head of bright orange hair. She thinks he looks like a carrot that’s been growing for far longer than it should have. She shakes her head and stands up, unwilling to speak in such a vulnerable moment. 

'Er.. well you see- y-you're my, um.. soulmate! You're my soulmate' he says, pointing to his wrist nervously. She half thinks she should just pretend her timer hasn’t run out and get away as soon as possible, but she knows that isn’t fair to this man.

She nods, letting him know that he is, indeed, her soulmate. 

‘Well, great then, when do you want to marry me?’ he asks, and then promptly facepalms. She waits for a few seconds, not knowing what to say to that. ‘I mean, would you like to talk a little bit, maybe go out for dinner?’ he asks. He’s trying, she can see that. She can also see his expectations in his eyes and she knows that she can never live up to them. She can never fall in love with this man.

But she agrees, if only to let him down gently.

She pockets his card and continues to Grimmauld Place. Wanting nothing more than to dissolve into Harry’s embrace. 

She breaks into sobs before she even opens the door, and she can hear Harry rushing to the door. That only makes her sob harder because he cares for her so much, and she should really do stuff for him too, but for now, she thinks she can be a little selfish.

She hugs Harry as soon as he opens the door. He quietly steers them towards the couch, waiting for her to cry it all out. He pulls out the latest episode of Naruto, 314th generation and pushes it into the projector. Wiping her tears, she shows him her wrist, now with the large, black 0 on it, showing the world that she is taken. ‘We’ll talk about it later,’ he says, and she loves him for that. They watch anime for the rest of the evening. 

***************

She looks at herself in the mirror, and she hates herself for not even trying to do this the right way. But this is all she has the strength to do, and it’s not like she likes her soulmate anyway.

***************

It was exactly as bad as she expected it to be. The man’s name was Ronald, and that was all that was said for the entirety of the date.

She doesn’t even bother going to her apartment anymore, she just walks straight to Grimmauld Place.

Harry is waiting for her, with two steaming plates of roast beef. She hadn’t eaten much during the date, preferring to take strategic water refills and bathroom breaks. She sits down, picking up her fork. ‘So, how was it?’ he asks, ‘Tell me about them.’ And so she does. She tells him everything she knows about her soulmate. She says ‘his name is Ronald,’ and stops. She sees Harry waiting expectantly for more information, and she finds that indescribably hilarious. 

Harry’s bewildered face sets her off again and soon she’s a giggling mass of happiness. ‘That’s literally all I know about him,’ she says, in between giggles, and then they’re both laughing like idiots.

****************

It’s when she heads off to bed that she realises that the reason she couldn’t love Ronald is probably also because she’s already in love with Harry, but her drowsy mind commands her body to sleep and that’s what she does.

****************

In the morning, Hermione feels hopeful. She doesn’t want to worry about the marriage law, there are ways around that and she knows all of them. She wants to cut Ronald out of her life today, and that’s the first thing she wants to do. She walks downstairs and happily watches Harry make breakfast, smiling like an idiot. ‘Sleep well?’ he asks, turning to look at her

‘The best,’ she looks back at him.

She is reminded of what she realised last night, but she refuses to blush and instead looks him straight in the eye. She can see that he loves her too, and she wonders how long he’s been hiding it from her. She wants to tell him at some point, but they have time for that, he’s not going anywhere and she isn’t either. For now, she just wants some delicious breakfast, some cuddles and maybe a movie or two. 

*************

Epilogue?

She used to look at the dark 0 on her wrist and hate it for showing that she was supposed to be married to a different man, but now she sees it as her engagement ring because Harry has a zero on his wrist too. As she looks around their cosy little cabin in the woods, Hermione wonders how they ever got this far.

**Author's Note:**

> Credit for the 'Er.. well you see- y-you're my, um.. soulmate! You're my soulmate' line goes to Nuetella who still stupidly thinks she's a human.


End file.
